The coach behind UFC champ Conor McGregor believes the fighters unexpected defeat to Nate Diaz was a good thing.

Dubliner John Kavanagh said it forced 28-year-old McGregor to rethink his game plan after losing UFC 196 back in March to a second-round submission to a rear-naked choke.

He told Ryan Tubridy on The Late Late Show on Friday night: “Even though the last fight was great, the one before that was a loss and i actually weirdly am kind of glad that happened under the spotlight.

Read More

He continued: “I was in Rathmines, I guess I was 18 at the time, me and my girlfriend. We were with a crowd but we were left behind.

"We were walking down Rathmines and I saw a guy getting a bit of a pasting. We walked passed him initially and then I stopped and said ‘I can’t do this’ and I went back.

"Now, what would have been sensible would have been to just go into maybe the Garda Station which was only across the road but I wasn’t thinking that straight and I jumped in.

"Unfortunately, it didn’t end like the martial arts movies where you drop three or four guys and you walk off into the sunset. I was the one that got dropped.

“I was the one that got dropped.

John Kavanagh and Conor McGregor

“Thankfully the guy got up and he ran, which was the natural instinct, I wouldn’t have held that against him.

“After that day there was physical scars, I got fairly beat up but it was the mental side of it, getting beat up in front of your girlfriend like that for a young man was very, very tough to deal with.